German Romance I

Daniel von dem Blühenden Tal

Overview

Overview

Edition and translation of the first freely invented German Arthurian romance.

Der Stricker's Daniel is the first freely invented German Arthurian romance, bringing the genre to a new level of originality. Beginning with Hartmann von Aue's Erec (c.1185) and up until Daniel (c.1210-25), German poets had drawn their tales of King Arthur's knights exclusively from the world of the French romance, most commonly from the oeuvre of the great romançier Chrétien de Troyes; but in relating his eponymous hero's adventures against giants, dwarves and fellow knights, der Stricker made a clean break with this tradition, claims that he received his story from the French poet Alberich de Besançon being considered a formula only. This volume presents for the first time together both the original Middle High German text of Daniel and a full English rendering of the 8,482 verses, on facing pages; the text is accompanied by extensive notes, bibliography, and index.

MICHAEL RESLER is Professor of German Studies, Boston College, Massachusetts.